Ghost Hunters Anthology 12: Ghost Hunter Mystery Parable Anthology

By S. H. Marpel, J. R. Kruze and R. L. Saunders

The adventures of the Ghost Hunters continue - with more exotic locations and hair-raising paranormal adventures than ever before:

This second quarter anthology of short story fiction by S. H. Marpel and various co-authors brings you new ideas to digest - all in the short periods of time you have available.

Explore such ideas as:

- The President is transported to a writer's cabin, where he reveals startling observations about the pandemic scam.

- A young girl sleuths out the truth about a Medicine Show wagon that can read your life and give you a trailer for it.

- A young boy seeks a mentor after he finds he can write real-life people into his stories.

- Three young children meet in an old barn to practice creating new worlds to replace the ones they came from.

This Anthology contains:

- The Panic of 2020 by S. H. Marpel, R. L. Saunders
- The Projector by S. H. Marpel, R. L. Saunders
- The Case of the Tenacious Typist by S. H. Marpel, J. R. Kruze
- The Eye In Team by J. R. Kruze, S. H. Marpel

Excerpt:

IT JUST SHOWED UP ONE day.

An old Medicine Show wagon on wooden spoke wheels. Positioned in a parking spot across from the closed-down movie house.  It's tongue stuck out over into the next one, but no one ever parked there, so it wasn't a problem. Not since they tore down the old hotel that used to stand on that side. And besides, the missing horses would have to be hitched there to move it.

Rumors said the horse-drawn wagon had to come in on a flatbed wagon. No one drove horses in town unless it was a parade. And then they loaded those horses into horse-trailers and they rode in the back on the trip back home. So none of the rumors answered how the wagon arrived.

The wagon itself was a funny scene. Not humorous, but odd. A small coin-box mounted on its front took only quarters and extended a single ticket, good for two. The paint was old and faded, swirls and fanci-fications made it look like the Wizard of Oz fortune-telling setup. When the guy was parked by the bridge and cooking some sausage over a fire - you know the scene.

Not that I was any Dorothy. Sure, I have black hair, but I like wearing it down, not in pigtails. And you would never catch me in a flouncy gingham dress with a pinafore. Cute dog, though. Wish I had one. Only not in our house or around it. Brothers and their baseball took up all the space of the backyard and the front had to be "just so" for the neighbor's approval. If Mom had anytime left over after cleaning the house, she was out in the front yard trimming, along with Dad on the weekends. But my brothers took turns mowing the grass short, catching hell if they scalped anything.

As the one girl in the family, I helped out with the cleaning. The main incentive was to keep it clean during the week so that when the weekend cleaning came, I'd have more time to myself. Reading my books in spite of the roar of the lawnmower and the arguments over the baseball game in the backyard after that.

If things got too noisy, I'd hike up to the library in the downtown "district" and read there, as well as find some new books to check out.

One of those days, I was reading along as I walked. And there it was. A line of people waiting politely. This was rural Midwest polite, not what Chicago or New York called "polite". Just waiting, patient.

After asking a  couple of questions, the answering fingers pointed me to the ticket machine hanging on its side.

So I got a ticket and took my place in line - just to find answers to my many questions... 

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Living Sensical Press
• Release date: Nov 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393132554

S. H. Marpel

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Book preview

The Panic of 2020

BY S. H. MARPEL, R. L. Saunders

"MILLIONS WILL DIE UNLESS you act."

Two doctors had entered my office, despite my Chief of Staff’s best effort to keep my schedule organized. Apparently, their message and dire looks affected his better judgment on interrupting me. Again.

Mr. President, the mathematical models don’t lie. China has loosed another plague and we need to act.

And you’re both saying that the only solution to this is quarantine everyone?

They nodded with serious faces.

Have you any idea how long we can ask the nation to just shelter in place? What I understand is that most people in New York, for instance, are living from paycheck to paycheck. And what about our supply lines for food and medicine?

Millions, sir. Dying. Every large city in our nation having refrigerator trucks filled with body bags. Do we seriously have another choice?

These American people are skeptics. They’ll want to know why we need them to give up their jobs and stay in their apartments instead of hitting the bars and restaurants for their entertainment.

...Because otherwise, they die?

Not your best punchline, perhaps.

I

These days many politicians are demanding change. Just like homeless people.

THE PRESIDENT CALLED me the other day. He sounded tired.

Mr. President, how are things – what can I do for you?

John, is that one question or two? Sounds like some of these press reporters I have conferencing all the time.

No, sir. But then, maybe I was just wanting to start off with something that would help put you at ease.

The only thing that would ease my mind would be some time off from all this mess they call running a nation.

How about coming out here for a bit? We’ve got some of Molly’s apple pie leftover – or maybe she’d bring a fresh one in. And Sal could get you back before you left. Well, maybe an instant later, just to not upset your Secret Service.

A pause on the line, but not much. You can do that?

I waited for it to sink in.

Yes, John, from my experience with you-all, I guess she could. OK – it’s a deal.

II

Some people have no idea what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.

SAL BROUGHT THE PRESIDENT over, just as we agreed. When I first saw them phase in, it looked like the two of them were just standing there and shaking hands. He was in a typical dark suit with a red tie, and she was wearing her tan business suit with gold pin stripes, her blond hair wrapped in a tight bun with two ivory stick-pins through it.

Then she pulled him to her and gave him a big hug. He couldn’t do anything but hug her back. As they did, her outfit changed to a light tan t-shirt over soft-washed, dark brown dungarees, while her hair untwisted itself to flow long and wavy down her back.

She whispered something in his ear, where he said something quiet in reply – and his suit turned into an blue-patterned Hawaiian shirt with chino slacks below.

Sal stood back a little to look over his outfit a bit, nodded in approval, then kissed him on his cheek.

At that, she vanished, and he was left holding a tall iced tea in one of his hands.

I was watching this from my narrow front porch, in one of the two wood Adirondack easy chairs. Just enough room for two of those and a pair of narrow, matching side tables. A small deck. When you stretched your feet out, they almost went over its front edge.

I could get used to having someone like her around. The President smiled as he walked up to my writer’s cabin.

I stood at that, and came down to shake his hand. Then we returned to the chairs and had a seat on the shady porch. My own iced tea appeared in my hand as I settled down again on the dark brown chair cushion. Sal was a perfect hostess, better than any wait-staff I’d ever experienced or heard about.

Of course, I was in my own preferred and usual red cotton pocket t-shirt and blue dungarees.

So, Mr. President, got any mysteries to tell me?

John, please. Call me D. J.

I nodded – and waited for him to begin.

Well, we found out about a lot of things that weren’t as they seemed. It all started earlier than we knew, and every prediction was wrong.

"WE GOT SOME DATA FROM the WHO about yet-another Chi-Com virus like their  SARS and Bird Flu, and the WHO execs labeled it a ‘global public-health emergency’. After some people died of it in WuHan, the Chi-Com’s put a couple million people into quarantine. So I took the step of shutting down all Chinese nationals coming into the US if they’d been in China recently.

"But we were missing a lot of data. So I put a task force in place to gather more data instead of waiting for it to come in.

"One fine day in March, I was sitting at my desk and these two doctors march into my office with the latest WHO findings, plus some report from an Imperial College in the UK – who estimated that the U.S. could be winding up with 2.2 million dead from this pandemic.

"And that meant we probably should follow their lead and lock everything down.

"Of course, it turned out that they were quite wrong about it. Hugely wrong. But we didn’t find that out for over a month.

"By then, we’d followed their ‘best suggestions’ and pushed half the country or more out of their jobs and onto unemployment. Lost all the jobs we’d built into the economy since the character who had the job before me started in. A lot of jobs. Great Depression-type magnitude. Bad. Very bad.

But didn’t you hear about all this from here?

I took another sip of tea before responding. Sure, D. J. But since the ‘news’ media is mostly wrong, and the pasture walks, plus all these spirit-guides around here keep me in good health, I didn’t pay much attention. Besides, I’ve got job security in taking care of these cattle here, plus my writing. And then there is having a freezer full of beef, and a garden out back, plus a small orchard. Worst part was going to town.

How’s that?

Oh, when people heard about things shutting down, then they stocked up on stuff. Their favorites. Like whole rows of bread would be gone, and the rows above them would still be there. Tee-pee, sanitizer, dog food, and frozen pizza’s. And a few days later, it was even worse – all the bulk containers of anything were gone, and then people also bought up the higher-priced versions of what they’d left on the shelves a few days before.

D. J. had wide eyes at this.

Now, don’t get all concerned. I don’t really need much that I have to have from town. And within a few weeks, the shelves were all stocked up again. It’s mostly that I like to pick up a few things on my way home from the livestock auction. That auction is what passes for my only real social activities these days. Other than solving ghost’s mysteries, that is. Writing is kind of a solitary work. But I like it that way.

The President shrugged. Good for you. Wish everyone had a life this good.

I nodded. Yeah, I tried out those things called ‘cities’ for awhile. Sat out the L. A. riots. Put up with all manner of weird stuff happening – crime, homeless, porn shops, Hollywood celebrity types. A bunch of non-sensical stuff. Just doesn’t happen out here. Especially celebrities.

D. J. sipped his own tea and thought this over. Different worlds. But you get what you sign up for, I suppose.

That’s for sure. I love the quiet out here. Then a thought struck me. You know, we’ve got a pond with fish in it, and a small boat down there...

D. J. shook his head. Maybe one day.

Or maybe a week. I told you Sal could get you back just after you left. Of course your tan would be improved and maybe add a few extra pounds.

He put a wry grin on his face. That’s if I could take the quiet.

I nodded. Yeah, there’s that. But it’s a standing offer. Bring the missus – we’ve got a spare cabin if you don’t mind minimizing.

OK, I’ll take that into advisement. Almost better than Camp David.

I won’t touch that line with a ten-foot pole. But then, I’m biased.

D. J. nodded. So, where was I? What do you think of this mystery so far?

I frowned. Kinda straight forward in retrospect. A disaster in the making. Mostly horror/action-adventure instead of mystery.

My guest nodded, leaning forward onto the arms of his Adirondack. It’s pretty straightforward, but doesn’t explain everything.

"No, you’re right. OK, we have the setup